Chapter 56

The Head Elder was the first to notice Lee Cheonbaek’s arrival.

The head himself has entered the fray.

The fierce wave of qi blasting across the gorge and the killing intent rolling with it made that obvious even without seeing him.

Sure enough—

“You bastards!”

Lee Cheonbaek appeared with a thunderous roar. His half-gray hair whipped around like a mane, and his eyes burned red.

The Mount Heng Sword Sect’s core forces arrived on his heels—First Rate martial artists and three Peak masters!

“Wipe out those Jin Family of Taiyuan bastards!”

“The Sect Leader is here! The Sect Leader has come!”

“Waaaah!”

The cheers rekindled their fading will to fight. Lee Cheonbaek surged down the path that had opened in an instant.

“Kill those treacherous Jin Family of Taiyuan bastards!”

Jin Wikyung was not about to stand by and watch.

“The time has come.”

The Head Elder answered.

“I agree.”

In truth, he had not welcomed Lee Cheonbaek’s arrival. A certain amount of attrition would have made the cleanup easier.

But the losses on both sides—the Jin Family of Taiyuan and the Mount Heng Sword Sect—were still nothing to speak of.

It doesn’t matter. They’ll be making their move anyway.

The two great powers claimed to be the rulers of Shanxi, but compared to them, they were insignificant.

Even in its heyday, the Jin Family of Taiyuan had been treated as nothing more than a martial family from the frontier. How could it possibly stand against them?

A mere martial family…

The Head Elder swallowed a bitter smile and drew his sword.

Shing.

For many years, he had carried two swords—one in his heart, the other at his waist.

There was no need for more words.

“I’ll handle Lee Cheonbaek.”

“Please do.”

Who was Blood Wolf Sword Lee Cheonbaek? A man who had founded the Mount Heng Sword Sect with nothing but a single sword and now sought to become the ruler of an entire city. Enemy or not, there was no denying he was a Peak martial artist.

I want to fight him.

But Jin Wikyung forced down the heat in his blood.

This battle would decide the fate of his family. He had to set aside his competitive pride.

“Wipeng.”

“Yes.”

Wipeng had already drawn his sharp, narrow blade and taken his place at Jin Wikyung’s side.

“You and I will handle the rest.”

“As you command.”

There was not a trace of hesitation in his answer. Jin Wikyung smiled faintly and drew his own sword—the treasured blade passed down through generations of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

It was the only thing his father had left behind when he vanished one day without a trace.

I’m going to travel around the Central Plains for a while.

Use this in the meantime.

Remembering the letter that had been stuffed carelessly into the scabbard, Jin Wikyung felt his blood boil all over again.

Travel around the Central Plains, my ass. You spent your whole life having fun.

He had no idea where that so-called Family Head was or what he was doing. And his second brother, thousands of li away, had probably only just received the letter.

I have to protect them.

Martial artists, maids, servants, children.

Jin Wikyung was now the Family Head of the Jin Family of Taiyuan. No one else.

Their deaths and their survival were his to carry, and his alone.

We will win.

Jin Wikyung’s eyes flared wide. He raised his sword, and an Azure Dragon’s Roar burst from his mouth.

“Don’t let a single one of them live!”

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The Jin Family’s masters kicked off the ground and soared into the air. At the signal, a single fire arrow shot high into the sky behind them.

At the same moment, dozens of figures rose along the cliffs.

“Fire!”

Beneath arrows pouring down like a sudden rain, the fight between the masters who would decide the course of the battle began.

Blood Wolf Sword Lee Cheonbaek was a born martial artist.

With his innate talent for martial arts and beastlike instincts, he had cut down his enemies and realized one ambition after another.

He founded the Mount Heng Sword Sect, then strengthened it by absorbing the surrounding factions one by one. He meant to lay the foundation for a prestigious house that would one day be recognized even in the Central Plains.

Sect Leader! The Young Master…

Then, one day, his second son came home a corpse.

He had not died in a fair duel. Deadly poison had taken him, leaving him to die with blood pouring from all seven orifices.

Lee Cheonbaek swore an oath.

He would kill and burn everything connected to the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

And then Jin Wikyung appeared before his eyes.

Flames blazed in Lee Cheonbaek’s eyes.

“You bastard—!”

He charged like a beast. His blade, filled with sixty years of internal energy, shone milky white.

With this much power, it could cut through any armor or divine weapon.

That bastard dies here!

Just as Lee Cheonbaek, sure of it, was about to swing—

“Oho. Sword Energy?”

A low voice came from behind him.

Lee Cheonbaek’s heart dropped.

How?

He had given up his back far too easily. His reaction was lightning-fast. Gripping his sword in reverse, he thrust it behind him.

Whoosh.

The blade stabbed empty air, and that bought him time. Only then could he see his opponent’s face.

A beard hanging down to his chest. A relaxed smile at the corners of his mouth.

A white-haired old man.

Lee Cheonbaek recognized him at once.

“Blade of Flowers?”

The Head Elder nodded.

“I haven’t heard that name in a long time. Then you must be Lee Cheonbaek.”

“That’s right.”

Even as he answered, Lee Cheonbaek felt a chill run down his spine.

He did not dare look for Jin Wikyung or check how the battle was going. If he took his eyes off the old man, he felt as though his head would come off on the spot.

Coincidence? No.

It was true that seeing Jin Wikyung had agitated him beyond reason. It was true that impatience had gotten the better of him.

But Lee Cheonbaek was a Peak master.

A Peak master who had reached the realm of Sword Energy Frost Blade.

The answer was already clear.

A master!

Whether the difference was a full form or half of one, the old man before him was a master a league above Lee Cheonbaek.

Lee Cheonbaek tightened his grip on his beloved sword.

“I’ve heard much of your reputation.”

“Reputation? I’m nothing more than an old man in the back room.”

“Then why not stay in the back room? What did you come out for?”

“You’re still a young fellow, so there’s a lot you don’t know. The older you get, the more you have to get moving now and then.”

Lee Cheonbaek ground his teeth at the Head Elder’s sly manner.

Damn old man.

He had been watching the Jin Family of Taiyuan for a long time.

He knew there was a faction centered on the Head Elder that opposed the Family Head. He had even privately hoped the family would split from within.

Instead, events had taken the exact opposite turn.

So when an outside enemy invades, they unite as one?

Lee Cheonbaek stared at the Head Elder with heavy eyes, then opened his mouth.

“How strong are you?”

“As strong as you believe me to be.”

“Word games.”

“I was thirty when they called me Blade of Flowers.”

At thirty, the Head Elder had already been a Peak martial artist.

Now he was a man of seventy. How had his martial arts changed since then?

After a moment’s thought, Lee Cheonbaek let out a wry laugh.

I’ve grown old too.

Blood Wolf Sword.

In his youth, Lee Cheonbaek had been unstoppable. Without an exceptional martial art or a respectable master, he had carved his way through everything on his own.

Even against an opponent a level above him, he never backed down. He charged like a wolf and tore out their throats.

I lived half my life that way…

At some point, people had started calling him Sect Leader instead of Blood Wolf Sword.

Blood relatives, subordinates, wealth.

The things he had to protect had piled up like a mountain.

He spent less time training and more time managing the sect. When the moment came to act, he stopped to think instead.

Just as he was doing now.

“Why are you laughing?”

Lee Cheonbaek answered the Head Elder’s question.

“Because I find myself pathetic.”

“You’re afraid of me.”

Lee Cheonbaek nodded in silence.

“Were you afraid of death?”

“For a very brief moment.”

“And now?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Someone of your level won’t manage it.”

“You have to measure them to know which is longer, don’t you?”

“That’s what the short ones always say. They don’t realize the result stays the same after you measure.”

“Your tongue is sharp.”

“Is it only my tongue?”

The Head Elder lowered his sword.

It looked like an ordinary blue-steel sword, but the moment it entered his hand, it began to give off a vicious killing edge.

“Come at me first.”

Lee Cheonbaek did not refuse.

The blade drew in sixty years of internal energy, raising a shimmering haze of light.

The realm of Sword Energy Frost Blade—a realm countless martial artists dreamed of reaching.

Tssss.

The moment the Sword Energy rose three inches—about ten centimeters—Lee Cheonbaek shot forward.

The unique martial art he had perfected through countless real battles unfolded from his fingertips.

Whoosh! Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!

Boom!

Sword Energy hacked wildly in every direction. Screams burst from between the mounds of earth that erupted in an instant.

“Graaagh!”

They were the cries of martial artists caught in the gap.

Every voice was a young man’s.

A red warning light went on in Lee Cheonbaek’s mind.

Behind me!

He spun and swung at the same time.

He saw the white beard fluttering in the wind.

And the sword in the old man’s hand.

Boom!

Kh.

The thunderous impact sent Lee Cheonbaek reeling backward. He was not even given time to register the pain in his wrist.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Every time the two swords met, thunder and lightning rolled.

Sword Energy poured out in a continuous stream, smashing the ground and tearing the wind.

Whoosh!

“What in the world is that…?”

The martial artists of both sides forgot they were fighting. They could only stare, slack-faced, at this staggering life-and-death duel.

In that moment, every one of them was thinking the same thing.

Are those two really human beings like us?

The ceaseless thunder. A feast of Sword Energy so dazzling it left them spellbound just to watch.

The movements of the two men at its center were faster and stronger than anyone they had ever seen.

Someone muttered, almost a groan.

“So this is a Peak master…”

To their eyes, it was a fight where either outcome would have made sense.

But the superiority in strength was obvious.

After some three hundred exchanges, the Head Elder’s sword changed.

Whoosh—slice!

“Ghk.”

Lee Cheonbaek bit his lip.

Blood streamed from the forearm the Head Elder’s sword had raked.

The strength drained from his sword hand.

Of all things.

He quickly shifted the sword to his other hand, but he was a right-handed swordsman by nature.

Even at full power he would have been hard-pressed. Now that his sword arm was injured, the outcome was all but decided.

Boom!

Crack.

A single blow snapped his wrist.

His Sword Energy, weakened by the severe drain on his internal energy, could no longer stand against the Head Elder.

But Lee Cheonbaek did not give up.

Not yet. It isn’t over yet.

He had suffered worse injuries than this countless times.

Drawing on the strength in his arm, waist, and legs, Lee Cheonbaek swung his sword.

No—he tried to.

Slash!

This time, it was the knee.

With its tendons severed, the knee buckled slowly, with no regard for Lee Cheonbaek’s will.

His sword carved uselessly through empty air.

Shhk. Shhk-shhk-shhk.

His side. His shoulder. His chest.

Lightning stabbed and sliced through his entire body. The fierce Sword Energy did more than cut through flesh and bone—it churned his insides.

“Bleeegh!”

Lee Cheonbaek vomited blood mixed with pieces of his organs and looked up at the Head Elder through clouded eyes.

The old man’s face was impassive.

There was no thrill at having defeated his opponent. No joy that the war was ending.

To him, all of this was simply the natural result.

“Cough… So Shanxi’s Number One was standing right in front of me.”

“If you’re not Number One Under Heaven, you’re nothing more than a martial brute from the frontier. Neither you nor I have that kind of capacity.”

“Tell me what you want. I’ll give you my neck. I’ll make my men surrender, and I’ll seal the sect for ten years—or a hundred. So…”

“Impossible. What I want is annihilation. Complete annihilation, without a single blade of grass left standing.”

“Why…!”

“Don’t ask me that. If you had won, our family would have been the one facing annihilation.”

Lee Cheonbaek glared at the Head Elder with bloodshot eyes.

He wanted to snap that wrinkled neck then and there.

But with wounds this severe, all he could do was wring out a voice.

“The Jin Family of Taiyuan… You bastards started this, didn’t you? You killed that young boy—my son!”

“Ah, Lee Seogeun. That’s right. That child was where it began.”

The Head Elder wore a sardonic smile.

Even the master of the Mount Heng Sword Sect, one of the two powers that divided Shanxi between them, had failed to notice their intervention.

Not even now, with death at his doorstep.

—When you meet King Yama, ask him. Ask who killed Lee Seogeun.

The Sound Transmission burrowed into Lee Cheonbaek’s ear, and his eyes flew wide.

“What does that mean…?”

It was a thoroughly impulsive act.

Perhaps pity for Lee Cheonbaek, who was about to die knowing nothing.

Or perhaps nothing more than an old man’s whim.

—Fare for the road to the afterlife. Think it over on the long journey.

The Head Elder raised his sword.

The sunset beyond the winter ridge shattered into fragments along the blade.

With this…

With the death of the giant known as Lee Cheonbaek, the Mount Heng Sword Sect would collapse.

Those who resisted would die. Those who surrendered would be taken prisoner.

One war would end like that…

And a new war would begin at the very moment everyone was drunk on victory.

It’s over.

At last, the Head Elder’s sword moved.

Screeeech—!

A sharp sound tore through the air.

Sensing his end, Lee Cheonbaek closed his eyes.

The blade wrapped in blue Sword Energy traced a beautiful line.

Slice.

But both the tearing sound that had come first and the direction of the sword defied Lee Cheonbaek’s expectations.

The Head Elder split a spear that came flying at his back out of nowhere, cutting it apart with Sword Energy.

An enraged roar burst from his mouth.

“Who the hell are you!”

The answer came the next instant.

“It’s me, you fucking bastard!”

The Head Elder saw the face of a young man standing tall on a low hill, and groaned.

“Jin Taekyung?”